The Miasma Diaries
by slire
Summary: Yellowing pages, scattered about the world, found everywhere from the Ural Mountains to bottled in the Marina's Trench; notes written by Pitch Back.
1. INTRODUCTION

**Disclaimer:** Disclaimed.

**A/N:** These will be told in vaguely connected segments, written like a person scribbling thoughts down on paper, unstructured. If there are themes you wish for Pitch to explore / go deeper in on, do comment.

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**INTRODUCTION**

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Hello.

I saw you birthed into the world, pink and warm and wet, screaming and trembling in fear. I saw you grow, eyeing the dark spaces of your bedroom at night, using your sheets to hide your terrified plump face. I saw you want, reaching out to the object of your petty desire, only to be refused and humiliated. I saw you reproduce, the remains of your act in a small rubber container thrown in the garbage, looking into a mirror and thinking about dying alone. I saw you die, lonely in your wheelchair, thin lips parting ever so slightly as life poured out of your shrunken veins—and I grinned, because you finally saw _me_.

I know where you are going.

I know where you are going.

**I know where you are going. **

All of you.

My names are many. It differs from civilisation to civilisation. Pitch Black. The Boogeyman. The darkness. An evil spirit. An illusion, some philosophers claimed. But when I visited them over a glass of absinthe their flaccid skin stretched in horror, and they thought otherwise.

The question always arises:

Do I fear? Do I want fear? Do I need fear?

It is simpler than that.

I am Fear.

I am every shadow. I am howling in the woods. I am water, dragging you downwards and stealing your breath. I am the shadow that wasn't there, the breath on the back of your neck, the face in the window. I am every test, every footprint in the snow, every moment before pain, and failure, and love. I am—

Fear.

It is simply another form of Belief. Stronger. More dangerous. _Me_.

Beneath the broken bed, I live. Fear doesn't rest. I was banished here a very long time ago.

But you already know this, yes? I can compare it to a glass jar, shrewd on tight, thrown far, far into a dark room inside. There is no word in any human tongue that can convey what that something is. But deep down you all know what it is. I am amazed at humans' ability to repress and forget, and to wrap thing into cotton. The children know though.

But I like words. Everything humans do and create is out of fear, including language.

I am writing this because I want you to know.

I want you to know that I am there with you, and it doesn't matter if you're young or old because I am always there. Sometimes I stand further behind you, in the shadows. Other times I'm very near, my hands resting on your stiff shoulders. Like now.

Don't turn around.


	2. TIME

**Disclaimer:** Disclaimed.

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**TIME **

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I know many things.

I know the secrets of this Earth. Things lost in time; the reasons grand civilisations fell; things governments keep secret and why you sometimes go into a room without remembering why you came in there. The dark spaces of the Earth are dear to me. The ones underneath civilisations; research facilities, basements, sewer cities, secret rooms in churches. There, I become safety instead of pain. Rather panicked than dead. I seep into their mind and leave fingerprints. Small trembles, anxiety attacks, when they are alone. I know this.

I do, however, not know a beginning.

Whenever I think back, the memories are drenched in black sand, just out of reach. I can see images—a screaming man, flickering emotion, a hurricane of black. It always ends with Fear. Should I attempt to dig further into my subconscious, I hear hooves clicking against the cold stone that surrounds me, warning me. I mustn't feel too much. I am only Fear. If I feel too much, they'll cleanse me like the first time they did so.

It is a cycle. Endless. Vast.

It will go on long after you're reunited with dirt.

Most spirits—and remember: I am not most—die within a 100 years. Some change. I remember the Japanese kappa before lore rendered it to a cute, mischievous little turtle duck. I remember when he dragged virgins to the bottom of the sea, and smiled at me with a beak full of teeth. He remembers, too, but he's not proud of it anymore.

Human life is short compared to mine. But I do see every bit of potential, however fleeting, every contorted little face. It opens up to me like flowers in sunlight, their desires dancing across their features. I eat them. They taste salty.

The most sold book in the world tells that before light, there was darkness.

There was me.

Come join me in the Dark.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.


	3. CHILDREN

**Disclaimer:** Disclaimed.

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**CHILDREN **

Ah, children.

Small humans with fat heads and dirty fingers and overactive imaginations. Adults claim it's the latter that causes their sensitivity to atmosphere and darkness. They do not dare think of the possibility that the things in the closets on under the beds are real. I often chose to reveal myself just as the parent closes the door, standing behind it, whispering "_I am very real, I assure you." _

A lot of people will dismiss this. Allow me to change your mind.

Have you ever experienced something so gruesome—so heartrendingly vile—that your mind expunged it?

Repress, repress, repress.

(Control, control, control.)

No? You think you remember? Every horrid experience a milestone, making you grow as a person?

Let me rephrase the question, then.

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you came in?


	4. THE LIGHT

**Disclaimer: **Diclaimed.

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**THE LIGHT**

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The child holds the lantern higher, and prays that the wind won't reach inside to extinguish the last light. I stand in the corner of her bedchamber. Near the closet. Smiling. The child watches me, and I needn't move. She's bright, and all intelligent children suffer bad dreams. They suffer me.

Light is hope.

I am not.

But light doesn't kill all shadows, I'm afraid. A person lost in the desert is better off than one lost in the surburbs at night, but neither are entirely safe. I merely coil under their garments and whisper terrible things in their ears. I run my tongue over their flesh, and leave goosebumps and cold sweat. Open spaces can be terrifying, too. Big black boxes.

Many people misunderstand.

I am not death. I certainly greet her from time to time while holding a trembling hand—small and soft or coarse and liver spotted—while she parts pomegranate red lips and opens a soot black mouth and devours their souls, sucking on her fingers, one by one. Lovely lady. Very polite.

Most people fear her, or what follows when she consumes a loved one.

The empty spaces she leaves behind.

I thrive in them.


End file.
